Live Here Love Here

One of the largest grant schemes aimed at improving urban environments in Northern Ireland today secured a £60,000 boost from Choice Housing.

The Live Here Love Here campaign, which is backed by several local councils and Tourism Northern Ireland, supports communities to transform their neighbourhoods and provides resources to help volunteers, groups and schools to create more green space and clean up littering, dog fouling and graffiti.

The new three-year investment from Choice will add further funding for clean-ups, green-ups and spruce-ups and help develop more free branded bags, clean-up kits as well as helpful fact sheets and leaflets. Applications for Live Here Love Here grants, which will be awarded in August, can be made now by logging on to www.liveherelovehere.org.

The Small Grants Scheme is designed to help groups improve the quality of their local environment by reducing littering and dog fouling; enhancing the environmental management of a local area; contributing to the development of civic pride within a community with a focus on environmental improvements or to enhance or attract tourism to their community through environmental improvements. Interested groups can visit www.liveherelovehere.org for more information and an application pack.

The scheme forms part of the wider Live Here Love Here programme, which includes an innovative media campaign and exciting volunteering opportunities to encourage participation all year round. To learn more please visit www.liveherelovehere.org.

“These small grants support voluntary practical action where people want to grow a strong ‘can-do’ community spirit. It is exciting to see the grant scheme growing with the seven councils, DAERA and Tourism NI now joined by Choice Housing and Coca Cola. This simply means more money reaching the places and people whose ambition is to bring about positive change where they live.”

Michael McDonnell, Chief Executive of Choice Housing said:

“Since launching in 2014, Live Here Love Here has supported groups to take small but important actions that have made a big difference in our communities. We all want cleaner streets, with less mess and graffiti, and more green spaces in our neighbourhoods. These grants give everyone a chance to improve their environment and the sense of pride in the places they live.

“Our partnership with the campaign is one of a series of investments that Choice is committing to this year and that enable people to secure tangible benefits and build stronger community spirit. We hope that our support will help amplify the campaign’s efforts to revitalise and reenergise neighbourhoods across Northern Ireland.”